My gut feeling is that something happened between "unprecedented partnership" and now to create a strain, but that aside, awful software sales services perfectly well as the reason today if one apples Occam's Razor to the situation. As fun as it is to speculate about what drama may have unfolded, it's entirely unnecessary when piss poor software and hardware sales figures provide all the explanation one needs.
Honestly, I think it's a lot simpler than that. With EA having their own set of problems, evidenced by decreasing their console output 70% and only keeping the safest bets (in their opinion) while shifting focus to mobiles. Not to mention having to deal with investors after disappointing financials caused by their console output missing targets, and prepping to Pluto their CEO. They did some market research and took a serious look at it.
I'm sure that even before the Wii U launched, it was easy to conclude that their demographic (for the games they decided to stick with) is just not there. And with them playing it really safe, they predicted poor ROI. As Oscar stated, their foray into the Wii market netted them success in the casual space. And with them moving that output wholly to smartphones/tablets (with good results), it was even easier for them to decide on the fate of their Wii U portfolio.
People keep saying "well that doesn't explain why they phoned in Fifa and Madden! They could have at least avoided porting the 2012 games!" But I think that's indicative of how early the picture was clear to them.
I'm not going to deny the possibility of some politics behind it, but it's nowhere as significant as these babbies think. It's mostly business. Nintendo had close to 18 months to stimulate interest one way or the other, starting with the "unprecedented partnership" E3, but they couldn't. A company with EA's problems thought it wasn't worth the risk, and certainly not enough to honor a stupid phrase that the kids won't drop lol. I'm sure the execs are looking at the recent HW and SW numbers and thinking boy did we dodge a bullet there!
P.S. I think the story about the Origin deal that fell through, the one with the telenovela tone that circulated reddit is a crock of shit. But that's just me.
That is entirely reasonable.
I do think the 'unprecedented relationship' moment (having Ritecello on stage and all that), was indicative of some burgeoning partnership. We knew full well what the machine was at the time, we'd seen the tech demos, and some of those became final games. I'm sure EA were under no illusions when they were trotting out people like Peter Moore, shortly after he was made COO, to say things like
this, essentially saying the machine's power didn't matter and it was going to be much better than the Wii. The tonal shift from that to, well, DICE saying their engines can't be done, and EA sports engineers calling the machine 'shit' and 'crap' -- well, I think its understandable people think something has happened there.
When I say I think there may have been some behind-the-scenes politics, I also mean problems in bargaining. Maybe an Origin deal went sour, maybe it didn't. But I can definitely believe that after the initial tranche of releases, and poor results generally for Nintendo, EA could see that Nintendo were in a vulnerable position. I can believe they would have tried to bargain for a better deal on royalties, or some other concession that Nintendo wouldn't be prepared to give (because it would be slippery slopesville to concessions for Activision and Ubisoft etc too)...
Actiblizz and Ubi's continued support (or at least temporary silence) WOULD be conveniently explained if it transpired they knew about EA trying to curry favour and too much control on the platform... but you're right, its a little too telenovela and
too convenient. There will no doubt be some good business rationale behind their decisions, considering their problems, but the blanket decision? No ports whatsoever? Suggesting Frostbite 2/3 can't be done, with internally conflicting news of Cryengine running, then making Frostbite Mobile? Not even putting out games that are going to Vita, despite the Gamepad potentially making it a very cheap port-buddy? It smacks of a strategic choice to me. I think they are either making good on a threat, or they do actually want to see Nintendo do a SEGA. I can't see it being the latter, as a third party Nintendo would almost certainly become a major threat to someone like EA.
